


You Must Remember This

by UniqueChimera



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV)
Genre: Abandoned WIP, Alternate Universe - X-Men Fusion, Genosha, I might rewrite it though, M/M, and to get me to rewrite it, fix it for the X-Men power ranking system lol, posting this here for posterity ig????, some animal harm, some body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25293472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniqueChimera/pseuds/UniqueChimera
Summary: A kiss is still a kiss; a sigh is just a sigh(X-Men Fusion where everyone's a mutant for real and not because of censorship)
Relationships: Chu Shuzhi/Guo Changcheng, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	You Must Remember This

**Author's Note:**

> so I wrote this a couple years ago and never posted it so here we are. I might go back to it and rework it/unfuck the pacing. It was inspired by Guardian making the Dixingren mutants and having to censor all references to magic lol. 
> 
> If you're not an X-Men person Genosha is this island that is often treated as a 'mutant state' or save haven. This fic is set in a future where mutants congregated in Genosha to escape persecution and isolated themselves from the outside world, so 95% of the population is a mutant. Most mutants manifest their powers at puberty. The government classifies mutant powers based on range, intensity and overall strength/danger using Greek letters. Scores range from epsilon (no power/not applicable) on the lower end to alpha (very strong) on the upper end. Mutants whose powers are a danger to themselves or others are classified as 'omega-level'. 
> 
> Let me know if any of that was confusing lol. Am considering writing an Untamed AU in this universe so lmk

No amount of anti-discrimination laws will make the Bureau stop favoring the Ten Great Families, so Zhao Yunlan has long since learned to send Zhu Hong and Chu Shuzhi in his place. But Zhu Hong is a fourth daughter and Chu Shuzhi a disgrace, so after an hour they still haven’t retrieved the file.

“People are dying,” Zhu Hong grits out. Chu Shuzhi says nothing, but the way he looms over the clerk speaks volumes.

“We understand, madam.” The clerk sinks into a bow. His cream satin robes brush the rose-patterned tile. 

Glowing blue wire wraps around his wrist, flickering like a firefly and so thin it’s barely visible. Chu Shuzhi tugs on it. The clerk stumbles, and one satin-swathed knee hits the floor.

“Find it,” Chu says. The fraying ends of his scarf are draped over the clerk’s face.

“A-as you wish.” The clerk gets to his feet and waddles out of the lobby.

Zhu Hong falls into the nearest chair, a white sofa embroidered with pink hummingbirds. “God!” Her right hand, already a bit snakelike from stress, makes skittering noises as the rest of her skin transforms into a copperhead’s scales. The vase on the other end of the room wobbles, glinting the same shriveled-pumpkin color as Zhu Hong’s scales. Blue wires wrap around it, saving the vase from an untimely demise on the carpet.

“Enough.”

Zhu Hong snorts. “A real Hong would have broken the table too.” Her scales make a  _ shlorp  _ sound as they revert to pale skin. Her pupils become rounder, and her nose starts to regain its shape. The vase loses its orange glint and settles on the table.

Chu Shuzhi lets the wires dissipate and looks out the window. From this height he can see the jagged edge of Genosha, still as dark and rocky as it was when the island - then an errant asteroid - had fallen to Earth. It reminds Chu of scar tissue. Further inland, he can make out verdant stretches of farmland - the Monroe family’s, no doubt - and the glowing power lines his family operates. Police headquarters is a lime-colored speck from this height, dwarfed by the Hong-Manh hospital and the University. The statues of Genosha’s Ten Founders float above the city, but the sunlight is too harsh for him to make out their faces.

His phone buzzes. Without looking, he flips it open. 

“Still waiting.”

_ “Damn. Tell Zhu Hong to stay put, alright?” _

Chu Shuzhi raises an eyebrow. “And me?”

_ “You’re going to the University. There’s been another victim.” _

* * *

Major Crimes’ newest recruit is a fresh-faced boy of 24, still swaddled in a UNIVERSITY OF GENOSHA sweater and a truly awful bowlcut. He vomited at the crime scene, still hasn’t come into his mutation, and shivers whenever Chu Shuzhi so much as looks at him, but his uncle is the Genosha Police Department’s Chief of Staff so he won’t be leaving anytime soon.

The victim had been beautiful in life - school photos revealed a young woman with a tiny nose and  **shining hair dyed purple** . Now her skin is brownish and shriveled, and her eyes are sizzling puddles in her sockets.

The new kid stares at the body. “H-how did she die?”

“Psychic drainage,” Lin Jing says, as casually as if he was discussing what she ate for lunch. He waves a metal rod in the air, and it hisses and beeps. He peers at it and scribbles on his notepad, then starts scooping nearby dirt into tiny plastic bags.

“U-um,” the new boy says. “Can I help?”

“No, I’m okay,” Lin Jing says. He doesn’t look up from his bags of dirt. “Why don’t you go help Chu?”

“O-okay.” The boy clutches his messenger bag and shuffles over to Chu Shuzhi, who is currently scowling at a nearby tree.

“Excuse me?” he says. No response. He taps Chu Shuzhi on the shoulder instead. Blue wires twine around his arms and pin him to the ground.. 

“What do you want,” Chu Shuzhi snarls. 

“Um.” The boy stares at him. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. It’s a very nice throat, pale and slender with graceful shadows cast by his tendons. Chu blinks and shakes himself. Not now.

“C-can I help you?” the boy asks. “With anything?”

_ Yes,  _ Chu thinks. He suppresses the thought. “What’s your name?” His voice is too rough; he clears his throat.

“I-I’m Guo Changcheng,” the boy says. “Um. It’s nice to meet you?”

Chu snorts and releases the wires. “Chu Shuzhi,” he says. Guo gets up, rubbing at his wrists.

Chu nods at the crime scene. “Tell me about the victim.”

Guo starts counting on his fingers. “19-years old, female, triple gamma pyrokinetic.” He pauses. “Specifically, she could manipulate but could not generate - “

“This was a mistake.”

“Sir?”

“All the previous victims had strong mutations; the weakest were beta level.” Chu Shuzhi strokes his stubble. “This woman’s mutation was too weak. The killer was targeting someone else.”

The next morning, Zhao Yunlan swaggers into University of Genosha’s biology department with Da Qing in his arms and a lollipop in his mouth.

“They helped me quit smoking,” he tells Guo Changcheng, who has elected to trail behind him like an anxious shadow. “Now I can’t think without one.”

He grins. Between the lollipop and the beat-up leather jacket he looks like a thug pretending to be a policeman. “Sir,” Guo says, “why are we in the biology department?”

“You’ll see.” He kneels and drops Da Qing on the floor. Despite his girth, the deputy chief is nimble enough in cat form to land on his feet.

“Meet us outside,” Zhao murmurs. The cat nods and pads into the nearest room. Zhao straightens and brushes unseen dirt off his jeans. 

He finds the room on the third try. It’s big for a classroom, even by university standards. Sixty students could easily fit inside it, and its windows let in so much natural light there’s no need to ignite U. Genosha’s infamous gas lamps. Lin Jing’s lead is talking with a tall, bespectacled man. Aside from Zhao Yunlan and Guo Changcheng, they’re the only people in the room.

“Miss Li Qian?” The man looks surprised, but the young woman - who, if Lin Jing’s hunch is right, was meant to die last night - only holds out her hand, her expression cool.

Zhao Yunlan takes the back of her hand and kisses it. “A pleasure,” he says. Her skin is a touch too cold, a bit too smooth. She doesn’t giggle or blush, the way most girls her age would. It’s a shame - people talk more when they’re flustered.

“Who are you?”

The man Li Qian was talking to bears the timeless beauty of an ink painting. Everything about him implies decorum, restraint - the spectacles, the pressed waistcoat, the thin bands encircling his biceps. For one savage instant Zhao Yunlan wants to rip all of it apart. He looks into the other man’s eyes and sees an echo of that desire, that savagery. But then he blinks and the moment is gone.

“My name is Zhao Yunlan,” he says.” He digs his nails into his palm, resisting the urge to take the man’s hand. “And you?”

“I.” The man looks at him again. Yunlan is lost in the tempest of sentiment in his eyes. He swallows. “I am Shen Wei.”

“Guo,” says Zhao Yunlan. His voice is very far away. “Interview Miss Li.”

“O-of course! Miss Li, please follow me.”

Zhao Yunlan doesn’t hear the door close.

“Have we met?” 

Shen Wei stares at him. Zhao Yunlan makes a living off of reading people’s tells, but he has no clue how to interpret what he sees on Shen Wei’s face.

“What do you do here?” he tries. Hopefully that’s an easier question. “How do you know Miss Li?”

Shen Wei looks startled, but he says, “I’m a professor here. Miss Li is one of my students.”

Zhao Yunlan leans in. “Professor Wei, I need your help.”

“What?”

He pulls his badge out of his pocket. It’s scuffed and yellowed from countless ramen spills, but it does its job. Shen Wei’s eyes narrow. “I’m a police officer, Professor Wei. I have reason to believe your student is in danger.”

* * *

Wires in every color of the rainbow protrude from the bunny in Li Qian’s cupped palms. Guo Changcheng watches as it writhes and shrieks, button-black eyes squeezed shut in agony.

“Miss Li,” he says.

She doesn’t look up from the bunny. “Yes?”

“What are you - “

“Just a moment.” Li Qian’s skin is suddenly a metallic, blinding gold. White light pours out of her eyes, her mouth, her palms. Guo Changcheng covers his face with his hands.

When he finally blinks the spots out of his eyes, the bunny is sitting up and sniffing Li Qian’s hand.

Guo Changcheng has met strong mutants before - his uncle is almost alpha-level, and Chu Shuzhi’s control is too fine for him to be anything lower than a beta. But Guo Changcheng has never seen anything like this.

“Miss Li, would you like me to interview you later? After, um - ”

“Now is fine.” She sets the bunny on a nearby counter and starts scribbling on a lined sheet of paper. Since they’ve met, she hasn’t made eye contact with him once.

“A-alright.” Guo Changcheng flips to the first page of his Official Genosha Police Questionnaire.

“Your name?”

“Li Qian.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-five.”

Only a year older than Guo Changcheng, then. “Occupation?”

“Student. Professor Wei is my thesis advisor.” 

“W-what do you study?”

“Bioengineering.” She nods at the bunny. “I am studying cellular and molecular regeneration.” She smiles; it’s small and a bit rueful, but it’s the first hint of emotion Guo Changcheng has seen on her face. “In plain Genoshan, I wish to reproduce my mutation.

“Pardon?”

“I am a biokinetic, Mr. Guo. Triple alpha. I can cure any disease, heal any injury. But I can only do so much.” She glances at a small, framed picture on the counter. “Many lives could be saved if every hospital had my gifts.”

Guo Changcheng points at the picture. “May I see it?”

Li Qian nods and hands it to him. It’s machine-drawn, from before Partition, but a gentle warmth is conveyed even though no mutations were used to create it. In it, a middle-aged woman with silver-streaked hair smiles at the preteen girl beside her, who is wearing a rose-colored tutu.

“My grandmother,” she says. “She died when I was thirteen.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Guo Changcheng says. He looks at the picture, at the tiny creases around the woman’s eyes. “She looks like a kind soul.”

Li Quan stares at him for a moment. “She was,” she says. “I wish - “

But Guo Changcheng never found out what Li Qian wished, because at that moment the window on the lab’s far wall shattered. Amidst the shattered glass Guo sees someone stooped over, covered in strips of dark cloth and bristling hair. His - no,  _ its _ eyes are black from edge to edge, its nose two slits in the center of its face. Its most prominent facial feature is its teeth, which are the green of old mold. They curve down the sides of its face, framing long purple-black tongue.

Guo moves on instinct, shielding Li Qian with his body, but he’s too slow. The intruder crosses the lab in three strides and grabs Li Qian by the neck. She screams. Guo can see her skin turning golden as it shrivels, wrinkling like a prune as her life leaves her body. 

If only his mutation had manifested, if only he wasn’t so useless, if only - 

He feels something within him connect, as if there was a jigsaw puzzle within him that has only just been solved. Li Qian’s leg flares where it brushes Guo Chancheng’s body. There’s a loud popping noise. The creature holding her howls. It lets her go, clutching its hand.

Guo takes Li Qian’s hand and sprints towards the door. He flings the door open and heads to the stairs. They’re almost at the bottom of the staircase when Guo hears it speak.

“You cannot escape,” it says. Its voice is deep, tight with pain, and familiar. Guo doesn’t know why. He keeps running, praying to all the Founders they can make it to the exit in time. 

Something hard and jagged brushes his wrist. He looks back; it’s the creature’s claw, the same moldy green as its teeth. Guo shrieks and tries to keep running, but to no avail. The creature’s claws close around his wrist, making contact with both Li Qian’s skin and his. Guo Changcheng’s stomach feels hollow. His knees buckle. The pads of his fingers start to wrinkle.

Fifty pounds of angry cat collide with the creature. It groans and releases Li Qian and Guo Changcheng.

“Get out of here!” Da Qing says. He hasn’t finished shifting from cat form to human form - his cheeks are still puffy and dotted with whiskers, and his pupils are slitted.

“Assistant Director - “

Da Qing pulls a pistol out of his belt. “Don’t worry about me. Go!”


End file.
